The Social Dilemma (and how you can help solve it)
written on May 14th by linc
tagged: apps, Friends, social networking, social web, twitter, web, web applications, web apps
The web is great, isn’t it? Seriously. All the data you could ever want or need, at your fingertips. Friends to meet and share thoughts and ideas with from all over the world. Great web applications that allow you to share interesting information with your friends and spark conversations. Well…in theory, anyway.
Here’s the big problem though; How can you get the best out of this application or that website if all of your friends don’t use them? Especially the hardest people to convert: Your real world friends and family. Take, for example, one of my favorite social news sites, mixx. mixx is a great place to submit articles, photos and videos of things you find interesting and share them with your friends. But only if your friends happen to also use mixx. Or another favorite application of mine, twitter. twitter allows you to instantly share information with friends, update your friends on what you’re currently doing or just share your thoughts. But, again, you can only update the people you know who are also twitter users. Ugh.
Every week, I see new and interesting web applications out there that I’d like to try. But more and more I just decide to pass on them. After all, how many times can I expect all of my friends to join me and test out a new site? There was a time I was inviting people to things all the time. And then dumping them after they got boring, leaving my friends in the lurch. So I stopped inviting people. My selfishness does have its limits, after all.
So there’s the problem. But what’s the solution? Well, there are several things that might help this, but they’re all a bit off. And I’m not here to solve the problems of the web. Just my problems. And I have a way to do this.
For the next week or so, I’ll be doing a series of posts here focusing on the tools that I use and love online. Unlike my previous series of web-related articles, I’ll be focusing specifically on the applications that require participation from your friends to get the best out of them. My end goal, of course, is to get all of my friends (online and off) to become one big, happy family. If that’s even remotely possible. And even if it’s not, I’m going to give it my damnedest. So, be on the lookout for said articles, and get ready to join me in my quest to get the best out of my personal relationships and the web. You know you want to. And even if you don’t, I’ll be embedding subliminal messages to make you. So there.
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First of all, you need a mixx it! button on your site so it’s easier for me to submit your articles. There’s my bit of selfishness.
I think the next wave in social media is going to be with sites that conglomerate each other, like friendfeed, but a little more efficient than friendfeed is. That way if people are online at all, you can share with them. It reminds me of the problem people used to have with different chat clients until the multi-protocal clients (like Kopete) came out.
I concur with calinazaret
Hey, K!
Thanks for stopping by my neck of the woods. Always happy to see one of my mixx buddies visit my blog.
can we start with how to fix twitter for everyone? i nearly had a nervous breakdown this afternoon when it crashed for like, hours. of course, i do realize this is kind of a personal problem of mine, but still. they should fix twitter! some of us need it way, way too much!
There’s a problem that needs fixing, but it ain’t twitter, it’s your addiction to it! twitter’s your heroin, my reptilian friend.
no it isn’t! it is totally not my heroin.
it is my crack. mmm, delicious crack.
Sorry, my bad. As my only drug of choice (other than the internet) is green, leafy and rhymes with barrywanna, I don’t know much about either. Except you smoke one and vomit a lot from the other.
well see, heroin makes you all … warm and mellow and stuff. there are many songs on the subject, this is where i get that info. and crack? well that makes you twitchy and needy (i get this info from observing my late former ex-uncle in law). this is how twitter makes me feel
Interesting post ape. I know what you mean re inviting your friends to join you to try something new. I have decided to stick to facebook and hi5 when it comes to social networks and though some of my relatives don’t really update their stuff and info there at least I know that we have another way to be in touch.
I think that it is possible to have a happy family of friends online and offline
Have a great weekend!
Thanks, Wen! I will have a good weekend. Well, I’ll try. That’s all I can say.